The Anxiety Solution App (MVP) was a success, but there was a lot of work to do to make the product better. Now we had an opportunity to A/B test the new features and track their performance and user engagement with the app. I continued to work on this project as a UI/UX designer and it was a great opportunity for me to learn more about product development beyond the initial launch.
After the launch of the Anxiety Solution App, I started to work on some new features that weren’t part of the MVP launch. The biggest priority for me was the toolbox - a part of the app that provided additional practices (i.e. wellbeing tools) on top of the main Anxiety Course. We also had much more data from tracking user engagement with the MVP.
Based on the previous user research I hypothesised that users had a problem of finding the right practice (i.e. mediation, CBT, etc.) in the toolbox partly because of the filters. So together with the team we planned to come up with a better practice filtering feature. After that I also explored other features that would make the search for the right practice much more intuitive and personalised.
The user research helped us validate certain assumptions that we discovered previously. It turned out that our users were very short on time even though some admitted that it was a matter of making their wellbeing their priory, nevertheless some of the complex practices took too much time. Some users were overwhelmed by choice.
Would be great to have a more personalised way to discover tools...
Some practices are too long and require a lot of effort, i.e. a lot of typing. I feel like I find it difficult to find time to spend on those...
I wanted to make the users feel that they don’t need to spend too much time and effort doing something useful in the app. The easy thing would be to remove more complex tools (practices), but that would compromise the effectiveness of the app. So my focus was on minimising the cognitive effort during the practice search process as well as providing a selection of shorter practices for users who don’t have much time.
First of all we changed the copy on the filters and completed a card-sorting exercise to group the practice based on users' feelings and situations. When I started working on this projects there were only 3 tabs ‘mind’, ‘body’ and ‘sleep’ which were replaced by situational filters like ‘ease stress’, ‘meditate’, ‘boost self-esteem’ etc.
I explored various UI patterns to utilise additional filters and looked at the ways we could introduce ‘sorting’. After researching and brainstorming I have decided that the ‘gradual reveal’ filter would be the best solution. The secondary filters would be appearing only after the user would select a primary filter. This way a user would be more focused on the tailored selection that can still be segmented into a smaller groups to avoid a choice paralysis.
The new filters would change the header image to emphasise collections of practices based on a user's situations. Secondary filters would help users to select a suitable type of practice.
Another feature that I designed and prototyped was ‘quick tools’ that were relevant to a certain time of the day and would appear on the homescreen throughout the day. This way the users would be able to find a quick practice from a tailored selection.
We also explored a ‘find a tool’ idea, but after testing it on users, we discovered that the placement and prominence of the feature distracted from the main features of the app.
The main objective for integrating this feature was to make the search for a practice much quicker. It was also a great channel to get relevant content to users on a regular basis to increase their daily engagement with the app.
I continued with our mission to create a complete anxiety toolkit, which would provide a wide variety of features and support for people with anxiety. It created a great framework for people to manage their anxiety on a daily basis.
The tools have yoga, HITT sessions, meditation, sleeping techniques, breathing techniques, all with very calming, relaxing voices too. This app has helped me out of a real hole - thank you!
It is challenging at times to deal with these feelings but worth it. So many helpful tools...
Excellent app and I’m finding that it’s giving me a focus and direction in dealing with my anxiety symptoms.
I focused on users' needs and experimented with different solutions, some were more successful than others and in the end I found a balanced combination to help our users. It was a great and challenging experience for me that helped me understand how to grow the product after launch and build on the initial success.
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I liked the quick tools selection process as it shows a range of topics, not just anxiety. Although I do not really understand how to use the categories to find new tools...